June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Abortion will still be legal in
Mississippi next month. It’s just that women who live there
probably won’t be able to get one.

Beginning July 1, all abortion-clinic physicians must have
admitting privileges at a local hospital under a law passed by
the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Republican Governor
Phil Bryant in April. At the Jackson Women’s Health
Organization, the state’s sole remaining clinic providing
elective abortions, none of the three physicians who perform the
procedure has been granted those privileges.

Mississippi may become the first U.S. state without a
dedicated abortion clinic if the Jackson facility fails to come
into compliance. That would mark the most visible victory for
the anti-abortion movement, which has fought to abolish the
procedure in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v.
Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to have one.

“Roe v. Wade said that women have a right to an abortion
in the sense that a state can’t deny or criminalize it, but
there was no guarantee of access,” said Wendy Parmet, associate
dean at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.
“States can’t create legal barriers or penalties, but they can
make it practically really, really difficult.”

Betty Thompson, a spokeswoman for the clinic in the state
capital, said the doctors have applied to seven area hospitals
for admitting privileges. All three are already board certified
in obstetrics and gynecology, as the new law also requires, she
said.

’Certainly Qualified’

“We are crossing every T and dotting every I to make sure
we have every opportunity to receive admitting privileges,” she
said. “We are certainly qualified.”

The state Health Department will meet July 11 to approve
regulations to enforce the law, said Liz Sharlot, a department
spokeswoman.

“Once the regulations are approved, we hold the facilities
accountable for getting into compliance,” she said.

Christen Johnson, a 20-year-old waitress impregnated by her
now-ex-boyfriend, may be one of the last women to get an
abortion at the Jackson clinic. She had her first appointment
there this week to receive state-mandated counseling and plans
to undergo an abortion this month. State law requires that 24
hours pass between the two appointments.

Ruined Life

“I want to be like my parents, I want to be married to the
guy, I want to be in love and I want to have both parents here
for the child,” said Johnson.

Her job provides barely enough money to afford a car and
couldn’t support a child, she said.

“Opting out and waiting till I am ready would be the
better decision,” she said. “If the clinic was closed, my
whole life would be ruined.”

The law holds abortion providers to a higher standard and
protects the rights of unborn children, said Terri Herring,
national director of the Mississippi-based Pro Life America
Network.

“If Mississippi closes the last abortion clinic, we will
be leading the way,” said Herring, who lobbied for the law.

Mississippi once had as many as 14 abortion clinics. Before
entering the Jackson facility, patients must leave backpacks
outside, pass through a metal detector and be buzzed in by an
attendant. It first opened in 1996, said Thompson.

Voters in the state last year rejected a constitutional
amendment that could have banned the procedure even in cases of
rape, incest or life endangerment. The so-called “personhood”
measure stated that life begins at conception.

Leaving Mississippi

According to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which
compiles reproductive-health data, more than 90 percent of
Mississippi women live outside of Hinds County, where the
Jackson clinic is located. Most residents already obtain
abortions outside the state: in 2007, 63 percent did.

Of the 2,297 abortions performed in the state in 2010, the
majority went to women who were nonwhite, unmarried, had a high-school degree or less and already had children, according to
Health Department statistics. Most patients at the Jackson
clinic, which provided 2,378 abortions in the year ending June
30, 2011, cite their lack of financial and personal stability as
reasons for seeking the service, Thompson said.

None of the 120 hospitals in Mississippi is licensed as an
abortion facility -- meaning they provide fewer than 10
abortions per month or 100 per year, if at all, said Sharlot.
Nationally, abortion clinics provide 70 percent of abortions,
and hospitals perform 4 percent, according to Guttmacher.

Forced Closing

Neither the University of Mississippi Medical Center, St.
Dominic Hospital nor Mississippi Baptist Health Systems, three
of the hospitals to which the Jackson clinic has applied for
admitting privileges, perform elective abortions. The first two
didn’t comment on the application status.

Robby Channell, a spokesman for Baptist Health Systems,
said one of the clinic’s doctors submitted an incomplete
application and that the hospital is waiting for more
information. The other four didn’t return requests for comment.

Michelle Movahed, a staff attorney at the Center for
Reproductive Rights in New York, said Mississippi’s new law is
among similar measures states have passed that are designed to
force clinics to shut without explicitly calling for them to
close. The center is providing legal counsel to the Jackson
clinic.

More Direct

Most supporters of those laws say they protect women from
unregulated and unsafe procedures, said Elizabeth Nash, states
issues manager at Guttmacher. Mississippi officials have been
more direct about the real goal, she said.

“The Legislature took steps to end abortion in Mississippi
by requiring doctors performing abortion to have admitting
privileges at a local hospital,” Lieutenant Governor Tate
Reeves says on his website recapping accomplishments from the
legislative session that ended last month. “This measure not
only protects the health of the mother but should close the only
abortion clinic in Mississippi.”

Mississippi is one of five states with one abortion clinic
targeted by anti-abortion activists, including Operation Save
America, a Dallas-based group that has protested in front of the
Jackson clinic, according to a posting on its website.

Protesters picket almost every day. This week, Doug Hiser,
a 54-year-old retired engineer from the Jackson area, stood
outside in 90-plus-degree heat trying to talk to people heading
inside. Ironically, he said, were the clinic to close, it may
hurt the local anti-abortion movement more than it does the
abortion rate.

“It’ll almost squash the pro-life movement, because we
don’t have a place to focus,” said Hiser. “It actually
prevents us from being able to do counseling.”